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Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

reuters.com

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Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

#51

Post by lovehashbrowns »

bumholio wrote: post #38
MrStonedOne wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The white house's website, (and more particularly, a section dedicated to publishing official statements) is not a public forum. The comment section of tweets is. And how government entities engage in public forums is regulated by the constitution and case law. Excluding people for previous expressions of their first amendment rights violates the first amendment in two rights, as it punishes the citizen for how they…

So if mr. Trump declares his Twitter account "not a public forum, but a section dedicated to publishing official supportive replies, that by default publishes all replies and selectively deletes those who aren't supportive", will that make things ok? It's not like a town hall because there is no official charter for what the realDonalTrump Twitter is. It seems some people want to enforce their view that it's a public…

The comments section below each of his tweets does act as a sort of town hall. The point of this is that anyone should be able to reply to his tweets and participate in the public discourse that happens there.

Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

#52

Post by toast0 »

xienze wrote: post #49
compsciphd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one can make the argument that Trump and Musk might be different. Trump by blocking users doesn't prevent the users from seeing the content (i.e. they can log out and see the content). What it does do is prevent the user from easily engaging with the president (i.e. why its a free speech issue). It's basically saying that users A, B, and C can easily engage, but by blocking D, we are going to put a road block…

>What it does do is prevent the user from easily engaging with the president They can’t just make another account with which to tell Trump “you suck”? Ah but how will everyone else know _I_ tweeted something at Trump if _my_ handle isn’t attached to it? That’s what these people are mad about. Not that they can’t reply to Trump (they can), but that other people won’t know about that sick burn they once made that was d…

Does Twitter permit multiple accounts for a single legal person in their terms of service? Do they permit creating additional accounts for the purpose of communicating with someone who blocked you on your other account?

Petitioning the government, regardless of how effective a petition it is, shouldn't require violating a contract.

Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

#53

Post by zaroth »

jonknee wrote: post #34
jrockway wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I agree. I assume that the SEC is fine if you take out an ad in the New York Times to announce your news, but that requires that people know to read the ads there, that they can afford a copy of the newspaper, etc. There is no such thing as a method of notifying everyone simultaneously. Posting to a public Twitter account is as good as anything else.

Well the times allows anyone to buy it, it doesn't specifically block certain people from reading. This isn't a big issue, every other CEO other than Elon Musk has no problem controlling his/her tweets to not contain market moving news. They should make an example out of him and we'll go back to having everyone disclose news in the proper channels. If the SEC does not come down on him it will be the wild west and inv…

My personal opinion is that Twitter is perfect for breaking news that should be distributed fairly to the largest audience possible without giving anyone an advance look at the news.

At the same time, people need to understand that there’s a limit to how much (and how precisely) you can communicate in 140 characters, and that means Twitter can alert you to the headline. It’s beholden upon users to take the time to ask questions and fill in the details.

As far as certain user accounts being blocked - the SEC requires announcements are distributed publically, not universally. Anyone can watch Elon’s twitter feed in incognito mode.

The SEC doesn’t require that breaking news show up in every single Twitter feed universally. They simply require that anyone can make the effort to be able to receive the news. If that means following Elon on a separate account where you don’t harass him to the point of blocking you, that’s not exactly a major impediment.

Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

#54

Post by s73v3r_ »

yosito wrote: post #15
chollida1 wrote: post #5

In a slightly related topic to blocking people on twitter, Elon Musk is being investigated by the SEC for a whole whack of things he shouldn't have done. 1) Release material information without alerting the exchange to stop trading and 2) and this is the tie in, releasing said information on his personal twitter account. Now this is normally fine based on RegFD but he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very c…

In traditional media, there are different rules for public figures than there are for private citizens. I think the same thing should apply to Twitter. Verified accounts should not be able to block anyone.

No, that's terrible, too. The stars of Star Wars, Episode VIII were harassed off social media by a bunch of trolls. No one should be forced off social media by trolls.

Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

#55

Post by s73v3r_ »

egypturnash wrote: post #35
yosito wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In traditional media, there are different rules for public figures than there are for private citizens. I think the same thing should apply to Twitter. Verified accounts should not be able to block anyone.

Oh I like that. Might get Twitter to actually do something about how uncivil they've let the general standard of discussion become if having that precious little checkmark meant it was impossible to block anyone.

In reality, those people would just leave Twitter.

Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

#56

Post by [deleted] »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #55
egypturnash wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I like that. Might get Twitter to actually do something about how uncivil they've let the general standard of discussion become if having that precious little checkmark meant it was impossible to block anyone.

In reality, those people would just leave Twitter.

[deleted]

Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

#57

Post by s73v3r_ »

factsaresacred wrote: post #40

So how does this fit into the "Twitter is a private company" argument when users complain about their free speech rights after being suspended? If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets. This is similar reasoning as that given in court: "comments on the president’s account [are] public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speec…

Twitter is a private company. The President's Twitter Account is not a private entity, though.

"If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets. This is similar reasoning as that given in court: "comments on the president’s account [are] public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution"."

If I go into one of the President's rallies and start waving my dick around, or otherwise act indecent, I can and will be asked to leave.

Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

#58

Post by FireBeyond »

psergeant wrote: post #24
mikeash wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public officials would be fine blocking people on their personal accounts as long as they draw a clear line between their personal and official accounts. Trump ran afoul of the law here because he didn’t do that.

Despite being downvotes, this is on the money. Had he maintained some kind of separation between himself and the office on Twitter, it’d have been fine, but he announces policy change first on Twitter, for example.

The issue is that he had no interest in using the @potus account, because his narcissism wanted the follower bump on his personal Twitter account.

Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

#59

Post by FireBeyond »

bumholio wrote: post #38
MrStonedOne wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The white house's website, (and more particularly, a section dedicated to publishing official statements) is not a public forum. The comment section of tweets is. And how government entities engage in public forums is regulated by the constitution and case law. Excluding people for previous expressions of their first amendment rights violates the first amendment in two rights, as it punishes the citizen for how they…

So if mr. Trump declares his Twitter account "not a public forum, but a section dedicated to publishing official supportive replies, that by default publishes all replies and selectively deletes those who aren't supportive", will that make things ok? It's not like a town hall because there is no official charter for what the realDonalTrump Twitter is. It seems some people want to enforce their view that it's a public…

He's the one that brought this on himself. His ego wanted the follower count on his personal account, and the White House itself has decreed that his personal account can be considered "official communications".

Let's not make this out to be people forcing him to act a certain way. He could easily have avoided this.

Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

#60

Post by jonknee »

Retric wrote: post #43
jonknee wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t be the only one, can I? No, but as long as more people go the opposite direction it is a net positive. Considering it's seemingly the natural progression of timelines I am guessing the numbers show that this is the case.

Companies do dumb stuff all the time. As long as the numbers look good in the short term you can end up with stuff like open office plans becoming common even if they are a large net loss.

And tech nerds do dumb stuff all the time too like wanting to nerotically "finish" a timeline of tweets. I think it makes tons of sense that Twitter wants to show its best content to more people than whoever happens to be on the timeline at the exact moment it's posted. It's frustrating sometimes, but you can use TweetDeck and get a firehose anytime you'd like.
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